What is New Hampshire? 2007 Edition

Full Report (PDF)

Executive Summary

The NH Center for Public Policy Studies compiled this collection of graphs and tables for the use of Leadership New Hampshire, a program intended to introduce rising leaders to the people, strengths, and challenges of the Granite State. The Center is grateful for the opportunity to present this material to the Leadership New Hampshire participants and to all others seeking an overview of information about New Hampshire. The Center, not Leadership New Hampshire, determined what to include in this report.

There are many ways to describe New Hampshire and many ways to understand New Hampshire. By living and working here, we all come to understand the state through direct contact with its people, places, and politics. This package of graphs, tables, and text captures the reality of New Hampshire in a different way: through things that can be measured, compared, and tracked over time. This paper presents data on New Hampshire’s people, its economy, public services, and local governance in the context of critical questions shaping the future of the state. The data tell where New Hampshire has been and where it is going, and how current trends and policy choices facing the state will shape that story and affect the well-being of its citizens. New Hampshire is changing, and there are reasons to believe the pace of this change is increasing, the impacts of which are as yet unknown.

This paper also highlights the NH Center for Public Policy Studies’ policy analyses, with additional demographic and economic data from a variety of sources to provide context. Many of the graphs are from the state’s Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau, the State Data Center operated by the NH Office of Energy and Planning, and the US Census. While the package does not presume to fully answer the question “What is New Hampshire?”, it provides a starting point for those looking for answers.